Portrait of a Day Trader / Quitting your day job to trade full time

Weeden has to keep a constant vigil over stock charts, or he may miss fluctuations that could cost him money. Chronicle Photo by Michael Maloney

Weeden has to keep a constant vigil over stock charts, or he may miss fluctuations that could cost him money. Chronicle Photo by Michael Maloney

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Weeden has to keep a constant vigil over stock charts, or he may miss fluctuations that could cost him money. Chronicle Photo by Michael Maloney

Weeden has to keep a constant vigil over stock charts, or he may miss fluctuations that could cost him money. Chronicle Photo by Michael Maloney

Portrait of a Day Trader / Quitting your day job to trade full time

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In his previous incarnation, San Mateo day trader Tom Weeden worked for a firm specializing in fancy, multicolor printing for graphic artists.

That's how he learned about a company that had come out with a digital printing press.

He bought 100 shares, made a profit and decided that the stock market was much more interesting than his printing job. "I decided that trading stocks was something I would really like to do, and I became quite a student of the market."

Four years ago, he quit his job and started day- trading at home full time, with a $20,000 bankroll.

He ran it up to a million dollars buying Iomega stock, much of it with borrowed money, then lost most of his bundle when the disk drive-maker's stock tanked.

His investment funds still total "in the six figures," and he uses them to earn a middle-class living -- $30,000 to $60,000 in profits annually -- mainly by trading futures contracts on the Standard & Poor's 500 index.

An easygoing, soft-spoken fellow, Weeden appears to be one of the more patient and disciplined day traders. He wakes up at 4:30 a.m. on market days, goes over notes he took on the previous day's action, boots up the computer in his immaculately neat trading room and flicks on CNBC.

He sits transfixed before his computer screen throughout the day, watching every price blip in the leading Nasdaq stocks, checking the ratio of advances and declines on the New York Stock Exchange, and following the chart line of the Standard & Poor's 500 index as it updates at three-minute intervals.

He looks for what he calls "set- ups" -- chart patterns that tell him the S&P is about to make a big price move up or down.

He hasn't devised any charting theories of his own, but instead follows those spelled out in the countless books on technical market analysis.

When something interesting catches his eye, he will exclaim "Gosh darn!" and pull his chair closer to the screen.

If he thinks that the market is going way up, he buys S&P futures contracts. If it seems to be headed steeply down, he sells futures.

But he won't act unless he is "at least 99 percent certain," so he typically makes no more than three in- and-out trades per day, and sometimes none at all.

While many other day traders buy and sell far more often and frenetically, Weeden says he is content to go after a limited number of strong plays, which might net him several hundred dollars each. Three of those in a day add up to a lot more than most printers earn.

In addition to the S&P futures, Weeden also buys stocks, but he tends to hold them for the long term -- which by his definition is one to three weeks. Among his recent holdings were AT&T, Compaq Computer, Home Depot and Qwest Communications.

By the time the market closes, Weeden has been awake for nearly nine stressful hours.

The closing bell on the New York Stock Exchange is his signal to take a nap. By 4:30 p.m., he is back at work, updating his records and scanning charts. He goes to sleep again at 9.